I fought Stormtroopers with a phone lightsaber
Your phone is your lightsaber and your computer is your escape route in a nifty Google Chrome Experiment game that lets you battle your way out of a Star Destroyer.
I've been captured. Again. Those Stormtroopers are brutal. I'm not very good at playing Google's Star Wars Chrome Experiment game called Lightsaber Escape, but I'm sure having fun as I fail.
Chrome Experiments are exactly what they sound like: Chrome-based browser hacks that let users experience a different sort of interactive Internet reality, such as exploring Middle-earth or navigating a digital maze.
The Web-based game requires running Chrome (naturally), but you need two devices to pull it off. I'm using a Windows PC and a Moto X. The main game plays on the computer, but the phone acts as a lightsaber controller, complete with an image of the hilt. You calibrate your phone to the big screen and then start moving through the halls of a Star Destroyer, fighting a horde of Stormtroopers to move on.
The Stormtroopers in the game aren't any better at aiming than the ones in the original Star Wars movies, but it's still tricky to wield the blue lightsaber in just the right place to deflect their volleys. I take a lot of damage due to my inability to precisely control my Jedi sword. I'm not sure if this is partly due to the way the game is made or if I just suck as a Jedi.
When it comes down to a one-on-one sword battle with a particularly beefy Stormtrooper with an electric mace, I do even worse. I haven't even finished my morning coffee and I'm yelling at my Jedi arms onscreen: "Oh! Come on! Deflect! Deflect!" This is better than espresso.
The Lightsaber Escape Chrome Experiment was developed by Google, Disney, Lucasfilm and Industrial Light & Magic to celebrate this week's worldwide opening of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."
The game looks pretty darn good. The 3D world is well-rendered and expansive. You step into a hangar and you take a second to look around and enjoy the sensation of being inside the Star Wars universe. Then the Stormtroopers start firing and it's back to yelling at your slow Jedi arms.
I'm still trying to escape the Star Destroyer, so I can't spoil the game's ending for you. Don't tell me. I'll get there. The Force has to be with me eventually.